A Pitbull for Christmas

Gunner

A friend of our family has a house full of animals. Several of them are pitbulls. They often come to visit for long fishing weekends during the summer and bring 6 dogs with them. And we all have a blast.

My husband and I have always favored Gunner (a male pitbull - now 3 years old) because of his clumsy, sweet, and somewhat naive personality and have enjoyed many fishing trips with him. Recently, for reasons I will not go into, my husband came home and announced that he was told that Gunner was being sent to the pound within a week. We were devastated. Not only do we love Gunner, we're huge animal lovers and the situation was a little tough to comprehend.

We have a 7 year old cat (Kitty) who is sweet as pie... except to other animals. Kitty's aggression towards other animals as well as a few other reasons have kept us from adopting more animals, although we have discussed at length how great it will be to adopt more in the future.

However, after many long talks, my husband and I decided that there was no way we could allow our beloved Gunner go to the pound. He's sweet, funny, well behaved... and all around amazing. So we decided to adopt him and we drove three hours through a blizzard to pick him up on Christmas day.

We've had Gunner for 4 days now and we're so thankful that we made the decision that we did. He's the perfect pet... although he's a bit of a bed hog! It blows my mind that anyone would be afraid of him simply because he's a pitbull. He's a big teddy bear and I couldn't imagine him hurting a fly. (Although, his farts could set the house on fire!)

While we're at work during the day, he hangs out at a family member's home to get exercise and to play with their dog (who is also familiar with Gunner from the fishing trips). We call it doggy day care and they're both having a blast.

Kitty has come out of hiding and has been taunting, growling, and hissing at him. He ignores her most of the time, but other times he walks up near her and stretches and lays down as if he's trying to show her that he wants to be her friend. It's adorable. I have no doubt that they will be buddies one day. Although for now, she's none too pleased.

Bringing Gunner into our family made this the best Christmas ever... we feel so lucky and we hope that Gunner does too.